


Goodbye

by Serenity59



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:43:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26333569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serenity59/pseuds/Serenity59
Summary: “You mean goodnight.”“No... no, I think I mean goodbye.”
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Booker | Sebastien le Livre/Everyone
Comments: 3
Kudos: 68





	Goodbye

**Author's Note:**

> Don’t hate me for this ;-;

Booker smiled softly at the ground, eyes wistful and resigned.

It made joes stomach twist. He felt conflicted- he should hate this man for his betrayal, he wants to hate him for it. He thought seeing booker be punished would make things right again, but instead, he only felt worse. Worse than he had in a long time.

“What are you doing here?” Joe asked, voice flat and devoid of emotion.

Booker huffed a breath into the cold winter air, his brothers frigid attitude not fazing him in the slightest. That should have been joes first warning sign. 

“It doesn’t matter now.” Booker murmured, eyes shifting to joes, “I used to think it would, but...” he trailed off, and Joe was trying to figure out what the hell the man was talking about. What did he mean? And more troubling, what could make the mans eyes so resigned and defeated? He’d never seen that look on Booker. He hated it. 

Booker shook his head, pursing his lips before giving Joe a thin smile. “Never mind,” he said seriously, “I should go.” 

“Why did you come in the first place?” Joe couldn’t stop the words that came tumbling out of his mouth.

Booker’s thin smile slowly turned to a genuine one, and his eyes crinkled at the sides with love. “You’re a good man,” he said softly, “I’m sorry I couldn’t be a fraction of what you deserved. I wish you happiness. Goodbye, Yusuf.”

He turned to leave, walking down the front porch steps, and Joe was so baffled by his words that he couldn’t restrain himself. 

“You mean ‘goodnight’,” Joe called after him, “I mean, we’ll see each other again... so, technically, it’s goodnight, not goodbye.”

It was meant to comfort booker, to show him that joe was still waiting for him to return, that as angry as he was, he was still open to the man. But Joe’s anger began to die and wither away faster than ever before when he saw only sadness in the mans eyes. 

“No,” booker cleared his throat, suddenly looking much older than he ever did, “no, I think I mean goodbye.” 

They found out later that Bookers plan had never been to turn them in. They found out about the security invoices, the people he’d paid to keep them safe, keep them out of his own quest for death. They also found out about how those people betrayed him, just as they’d accused Booker. But he never defended himself, never denied it, let them hate him and cast him from their thoughts.

So when they found his body that night, it made the realization of why all the more terrible. 

He’d been planning on leaving them, and somehow, he thought that if they thought he’d betrayed them, they’d never have to go through the pain of mourning.

Guilt was an all consuming spirit that would haunt Joe for the rest of his days. It haunted all of them, he supposed, but none more than he. He’d been the most vocal, the fiercest in his animosity towards Booker. He’d been the one to scream and yell, say those horrible things that looking back now he knows he never meant. Lies, that’s what they were. That’s what he was. A liar. 

And now booker had killed himself with the only vial ever to exist of the only drug that could have ever killed them. It was gone- the formula, the notes, the chemical itself, all destroyed when they blew up merricks lab. All except for the single glass bottle that booker had tucked in his pocket. 

Joe knew it was his fault. He had murdered his younger brother. He was as guilty as if he’d injected the man himself. He was the one who drove the man to feel alone and unwanted, made sure he felt unwelcome in their lives. Booker had been in pain for such a long time, and he’d been blind to it. In fact, he cut loose the only life line booker was holding onto in his final days- his connection to his family. To them. Now, he’d love out a punishment of his own: to go on forever without Booker, to watch the others be robbed of his presence and know that he’s the reason they are grieving. 

Nicky tried to comfort him, obviously, tried telling him that he couldn’t have possibly known. But this only made him feel worse, because that was just the point- he _couldn’t_ have known. He was so absorbed in his own pain and fear, in his own problems, that he’d been unable to see what he could have seen otherwise. He missed the signs because he was too busy being angry and bitter and hurt. Now, he was all three again, but in a worse and horribly different way.

They buried Booker next to his wife, in a graveyard that one of Copley’s intel found after digging through records of the French Catholic Church’s 200 year history. It used to be a farming village, apparently, but now it was a simple cemetery across the street from the bustling malls of Paris and tourists going about their daily lives. It was so wrong, so twisted that all of the world went on as if nothing ever happened, oblivious to the existence of Booker and the impacts he’d had. It was insulting, if Joe was being honest, and he felt offended on bookers behalf that the city couldn’t pause even for one moment of silence.

Because now, that’s all Joe would ever have in Booker’s place; deep, suffocating, silence.


End file.
